


before knowing remembers

by dothraki_shieldmaiden



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 15.04 coda, Angst, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Memory Alteration, Spoilers, Team Free Will
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2019-11-11
Packaged: 2021-01-27 03:51:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21385636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dothraki_shieldmaiden/pseuds/dothraki_shieldmaiden
Summary: Memory believes before knowing remembers.There's something that Dean's missing. He's almost sure of it.15.04 coda.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 26
Kudos: 197





	1. before knowing realizes

**Author's Note:**

> I am not a Good Person, because I have about 10 other things that I should be working on, but oh well. No one's perfect.

\---

_Memory believes before knowing remembers. Believes longer than recollects, longer than knowing even wonders.--William Faulkner_

\---

Sam’s bombshell effectively kills any conversation. Sam seems to be fine with it--he rests his forehead against the window like he’s in some kind of goddamn music video. Rain streaks past the windows and for a long time, the only sound in the car is the squeal of the wipers across the windshield and the soft hush of the tires sprinting over wet asphalt. 

What is there to say? Dean feels like a real piece of shit, but he can honestly say that it’s been...years since he thought about Jessica. Truth be told, he tried not to think about her much at all. It was one of those things--someone that he managed to be too late to save, another chalk mark on the tally of failures in his life--Except there, for the first few months that he and Sam were hunting together, back when their entire mission was _We need to find Dad_, he couldn’t turn his back on the idea that he’d failed. Failed Sam, failed Jess, even failed Mom in some subtle yet irreversible way. Every time he looked at Sam, it was like watching her burn all over again. Every time Sam woke up gasping was another reminder--_You failed_. 

So yeah, Dean tries to put Jessica out of his mind as much as possible. He’s done really well--between Madison, Ruby, Amelia, Eileen, and Rowena, between apocalypse after apocalypse, Jess got lost in the shuffle. Dean only met her the once--cute, blonde. Nice tits, if he’d been looking, which of course he was. Seemed sweet. Maybe seemed like she would have been something good. And then Dean crashed into her life and she ended up just another dead girl. 

So yeah, they don’t fucking talk on the way home. 

They get back to the bunker. Sam looks at Dean for a moment, like there’s something that he wants to say, but he can’t just figure out the words for it. He decides on silence. The last Dean sees of him are his shirttails whipping around a corner as he makes his way to his room. Dean wants to call after him, but he finds that he just doesn’t have the energy. That seems like it’s happening a lot to him lately. 

He ends up in one of the chairs in the library, glass in hand. He swirls the whiskey around, watching how it catches the light. He takes a slow sip, savoring the burn. 

_It’s obvious that you’re not parents_. 

That one...that one had stung. 

That kid, Billie. The way that he’d looked at Dean and knelt, so calm. Terrified. There was a look in his eyes, like maybe he wanted Dean to find a way out for him, but he already knew that wasn’t going to happen. His hands shook as he raised the machete--

Jack. Jack, looking up at him, slightly cross-eyed as he tried to keep Dean’s face and the gun in his sight. The acceptance on his face. The trust. The resignation. 

_He’s like our kid_, Sam said once, and Dean had scoffed. Dean Winchester, father? Yeah fucking right. But then the words had set in, and yeah. He and Sam had Lucifer’s weird little kid sleeping in their bunker. 

_You’re not a parent. You wouldn’t understand. You’d die for your kid. Or kill for them_. 

Dean tried to kill his kid. 

Sitting in the library, with Sam in his room doing his level best to try and disappear, it finally crashes down on Dean--the rage, the grief, the betrayal, the incessant screaming in the back of his mind--_make it stop, make this stop, please, please_\--And Jack had just looked at him, doe-eyes blinking as he’d guided Dean’s hand toward his forehead. 

With a convulsive movement, Dean hefts the glass at the wall. In the split-second when it shatters and glass flies everywhere, he sees it--_a flash of blue-white light, lightning striking, a clap of thunder and a flash of wings_\--And then he’s standing alone in the library, his hand bleeding where one of the shards managed to cut him. 

“What the fuck,” Dean mutters. He looks down at the blood trickling down his wrist. He presses down on the place where his skin split. Bright pain flashes through his hand and up his shoulder and the blood starts to flow with a vengeance. He remembers pressing down on the gash in Sam’s hand, when the wall came down, when...when...

Dean presses harder on the wound--What about this is real? What happened when Sam’s wall came tumbling down? Why is there betrayal mingling with his memories of Jack? What about this is real? 

_We are_. 

Dean rips his thumb away from his hand. His palm aches and the only sound in the library is the almost inaudible drip of his blood onto the hardwood floor. “What the fuck,” he mutters again, before he goes to wrap his hand. 

\---

Sam emerges from his room around lunchtime the next day. Dean almost thinks about saying something, but decides against it when he sees the dark circles underneath his eyes. _I can’t breathe_, Sam had said, and for the first time in maybe years, Dean lets himself see the toll that this job took on his baby brother. Just another person in the long line of people that Dean’s managed to fail. 

Mom, Dad, Bobby, Jack, Charlie, Benny, Kevin--

There’s something else there, a name that lurks in the shadows at the back of his mind. Dean reaches for it, but it slithers away. It’s the almost, not-quite, tip of your tongue type of remembrance, where he would know what he was thinking about if he could only put a name to it, but he needs to put a name to it before he knows what he’s thinking about. 

“You have an accident last night?” 

Dean startles and looks over at Sam, who’s peering in the wastebasket. Ah. The remnants of the glass would be right on top. 

Dean forces a nonchalant shrug. “You know how it is. Butterfingers.” He waves his hands, forgetting the cut on his palm until the healing skin pulls. 

Sam doesn’t look convinced, but he also doesn’t look like he’s willing to go the ten rounds that it will take to wrestle a straight answer out of Dean. He never thought that he’d miss that pinched face and the prissy set of Sam’s mouth, but here he is. 

“So I thought that we’d take some time off,” Dean begins. He’d actually thought no such thing, but in light of last night’s conversation, it seems appropriate. 

“Actually I found us a job last night.” Sam holds out his phone and Dean scans the article. Two bodies found in Shoshone National Forest in Wyoming. Not the type of job that he would prefer when the temperature’s dropping, but hell. A chance to kill something? He’ll take it. 

“All right. Give me a few hours to get some laundry done, we can be on the road by 3.” After some searching, Dean finds a muffin that’s a little less stale than the others, and shoves it into his mouth. He chews around the dry texture, wincing as the lump of flour descends down his throat. 

“Great.” Sam is already half out the door when Dean calls his name. He pauses, but every line in his body screams his desire to be gone. 

“When you...” Dean scratches at the back of his neck, unsure of how to continue. In the doorway, Sam shifts his weight, taking an infinitesimal step backward. “Your wall. What do you remember about it? When it came down?”

Sam eyes widen before he squints in suspicion. The wall is just another thing in the long line of topics that they Don’t Talk About. They could fill an entire, separate bunker with the things that they choose to forget. 

“Why are you asking?”

Dean takes refuge in irritation. “It was just a question, never mind. Jesus.” 

Properly cowed, Sam’s shoulders slump. “I mean, you were there; I told you what I know. It just came down--too much scratching. I managed to wake up in time to help you stop Crowley from taking all the souls out of Purgatory, but not in time to stop the Leviathans from escaping. Took a while but I managed to patch it back up.” Sam’s fingers ghost self-consciously over his temples. “Seriously, why do you--” Sam’s eyes fall to Dean’s hand, and Dean resists the urge to snatch the offending appendage out of his sight. “Did something happen last night?” 

The scoff that Dean forces out of his throat burns in the air. “No. It was just...I was just wondering. Trying to figure out where we went right and where Chuck was just trying to nudge us along, you know?” 

The tension in Sam’s posture fades away, but doesn’t completely disappear. There’s still suspicion in his eyes as he looks at Dean. “You need to stop picking at it. Whatever Chuck did, whatever storyline he tweaked--we’re free. Who cares whether or not he helped build back the wall? You said it yourself: we’re making our own choices now. He’s not interfering in our lives anymore.” Sam shakes his head as he huffs a little disbelieving laugh. “To think that I have to explain free will to you of all people.” 

“Yeah.” Dean shrugs. His ignorance sits on his shoulders like a cloak and he tries to shake off the feeling that he’s missing something essential. There’s something lurking just outside his awareness, something huge, something related to Sam’s wall, and Jack, and free will-- “Whatever. Leaving at 3!”

\---

It’s an 11 hour drive to Shoshone National Forest. Once upon a time, Dean would have made that drive in one shot and not thought twice about it. Now, however--

Hour 7 brings a twinge to the back of his neck and a persistent ache to his lower back. His ass hurts. His 25 year old self would split a gut laughing at him. Of course, his 25 year old self never envisioned reaching the other side of 40 so what the hell does that asshole know? 

Sam doesn’t say anything as Dean pulls into the motel parking lot. He grunts when Dean says “First shower,” and by the time that Dean emerges, he’s fast asleep on the bed. 

“Asshole,” Dean mutters. He throws on some sweats and a t-shirt and pads over to Sam’s bed. Fucker didn’t even bother to take off his boots. 

Sam groans as Dean pulls off his boots, but doesn’t wake. The thought of moving that gargantuan body puts more weariness in Dean than the entire drive, so he doesn’t bother trying to roll Sam under the blankets. Let the Sasquatch figure that out for himself. 

He tucks himself under the blankets and pushes away the doubts nipping at the back of his mind. They won. They beat the ghost apocalypse, flipped God the bird, and killed the monster. 

So why does it feel like they lost? 

\---

The next time Dean wakes, he’s in a dream. 

He can always tell that it’s a dream because sunlight tickles his eyelids while the scent of fresh laundry wafts into his nose. There’s no natural sunlight in the bunker and most motel sheets smell like ass. More than just the sensory elements, there’s the unreal, slow quality to his body and the world--the idea that he’s lagging, just a second behind where he should be. Every edge is muted and foggy--no one would ever run into the corner of a table in this world. If they did, their body would just slide off like oil and water. 

Dean likes this kind of dream, where he can pretend to be someone, anyone else, if only for a few minutes. He likes when he can wake in a bed that’s undeniably his, in a world where he gets to greet the dawn like any other person. A world where he doesn’t have to skulk in the shadows and feel guilty for what he’s done. A world where he gets to wake up with a warm body in bed next to him. 

At first, Dean doesn’t roll over. He used to have these dreams all the time, right around when he left Lisa. In the dream, he would wake up next to her and it would be like no time had ever passed. She’d grin at him, that huge _I’m glad you’re here, I’m glad your face is the first thing I see in the morning_, smile and press against him, all warm supple skin and easy laziness. Dean would wake up from those dreams feeling the ache of missing her, feeling the coldness of his empty bed even more than usual. And after all the shit had gone down, when she and Ben barely survived their encounter with Crowley’s minions, and he’d had to beg that douchebag Balthazar to erase their memories...Dean would imagine, just for a second, that he could hold her one more time. 

So he doesn’t roll over. He’s happy to linger in this moment, but only for a visit. A tourist. The hand on his upper left arm changes that. 

It’s a strong hand, capable. The fingers spread over his skin, slotting against his muscle in such a predetermined way that lights recognition along Dean’s spine. A thumb strokes over a smattering of freckles while Dean struggles to breathe. It’s on the tip of his tongue, he could reach out and touch the answer. 

“Morning,” a sleep-rough voice rasps. A man’s voice. “You’re up early.” 

Dean can’t stop the roll of his body. He looks at his companion--dark, messy hair, sharp nose, light blue eyes, full lips, a jawline full of stubble. A lazy, indulgent, Sunday morning smile lights up his face. “Why don’t you go back to sleep? We can get up in a few hours.” 

Dean’s mouth opens, ready to say the name--_Sam’s wall, Leviathans, We’re making this up as we go, I did all of it for you, I’ll have to watch you while you murder the world, I love you, We had a family, We Are_\--He’s inches away, centimeters, his heart singing because this is it, this is what he’s been missing--

He blinks, and the world...frizzes, like static on a TV picture. Dean blinks, mouth dry, and looks into Lisa’s warm, brown eyes. “Hey sweetie,” she says, thumb skating over the skin just below his eye. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” 

\---

Dean wakes in the motel room, gasping and shaking. The dream threatens to slip through his fingers like water, so he grabs the notepad and writes down everything that he can remember--What the man looked like, the feelings that he had, the sudden realization that empty slots were being filled in his mind. 

Even as he writes, the details of the dream vanish. Within thirty seconds, he can’t remember the shade of the man’s eyes. After a minute, he’s having trouble recollecting the sound of his voice. After two minutes, he can’t remember what he said. His left shoulder tingles and Dean tries to fit his fingers to the pattern. It’s not right, he knows that, yet it feels closer to right than anything else. 

He leaves his hand on his shoulder, squeezing, throughout the night. 

\---

The noise from Sam's shower wakes him in the morning. Dean rolls over and puts his face in the pillow, punctuating the movement with a loud groan. It's not like Sam will hear him, but it at least makes him feel validated. Shitty night. Shitty mattress, shitty pillow, shitty dreams. He's not one for remembering his dreams, so he doesn't panic when he can't recall exactly what made them shitty, but he's familiar enough with the lingering ache to know that they were. Having a faulty dream is like getting punched, but in the subconscious, when he can't duck and cover. Shitty fucking subconscious. 

Sam exits the shower in a completely unnecessary billowing of steam and coconut scent. Dean groans again, to let his brother know the extent of his displeasure, and then proceeds to try and force his brain into five more minutes of sleep. Five more minutes and then he can force his achy, shouldn't have slept that way body into movement. Jesus, he really is getting too old for this. 

"I know you're not asleep," Sam says, nixing any potential of additional sleep. "Come on. If we hustle we can make it to the forest and meet with someone at the Ranger's station." 

"Fuck off," Dean mumbles into the pillow, except the words end up lost in the fabric. The upraised middle finger should get his point across fairly eloquently. 

He can't see the face Sam makes, but he's spent long enough with him that it doesn't leave much to imagination. "Get out of bed already, Jesus, you're such a _child_." 

_You're a fucking child_, Dean mouths into the pillow. He doesn't say it aloud. It's enough that he made the attempt. He ignores the sounds of Sam getting ready, determined to stay in bed as long as humanly possible. There's no chance of his going back to sleep, but now he needs to make a point. His baby brother doesn't tell him what the hell to do. 

Dean does such a good job ignoring Sam's sounds that he barely notices when they stop. He doesn't think to place the soft rustling on the nightstand with anything, at least not until Sam says, "You dream journaling?"

Dean flips over, his heart suddenly racing in his chest. He remembers now--the weird ass dream, the constant itching in the back of his mind-- "Mind your own business," he says. 

He makes a grab for the notepad in Sam's hand, which is probably about the worst move he could make. He's still sleep-stupid and uncoordinated. Sam dodges him easily with nothing more than a step backward, and now Dean's hanging half off the bed, sheets twisted around his waist. He's gone and done the dumbest thing, which is prove to Sam that whatever he has is valuable in some way. 

He's expecting mockery, but there's no hint of that in Sam's eyes. Instead there's--hesitation? Relief? 

"What kind of dreams are you having?" Sam asks. 

Dean shrugs with a nonchalance he's nowhere close to feeling. "Just dreams, you know? Probably shitty ones, but who can remember enough to tell?"

Dean knows that look on Sam's face. Knows it well, intimately. He and that look have spent years together, are thinking about buying their first house, maybe putting in the paperwork to adopt a cute little Labradoodle. 

It's the look that says, plainer than any words, _I am hiding something from my big brother_. 

"What." It's not phrased as a question. 

"I just...dreams. I've been...I've been having some lately." 

Immediately, Dean's defenses rise. "Are these like weird psychic dreams? Creepy "Let Lucifer out of his Cage" dreams?" 

Sam's face shutters. If he were a little more awake and a little more prepared, then maybe Dean would feel bad. It's certainly not like he _wants_ to remind Sam of his Greatest Hits. But he's a hunter, first, foremost, forever, and anytime Sam's had dreams, it's always spelled something Not Good in their future. 

"They're just...they're dreams. I don't know what they mean yet; they probably don't mean anything. But this." Sam taps his fingers against the page. Dean has to squint to see what's caught his attention. In his half-asleep, spiky handwriting, he'd scribbled _SAM'S WALL???_ and underlined it. It's there that Sam's finger rests. 

"This. It's like...these past few days. I just...Something's missing and I don't know what it is. It's like...I keep on catching glimpses out the corner of my eye. Like something that _should_ be there, but it's not. But it's with memories too--Like, I'm trying to remember what happened with my wall and I _know_ what happened. I know everything about it--Crowley, Balthazar, Purgatory--but I keep on almost brushing against something. I'll almost have it and then--gone." 

This is all sounding eerily familiar. Dean could accept it if it was something that his own, fucked up brain conjured. He could even accept it if it was something that Sam's fucked up brain conjured. But both of them? 

"It's like," Sam continues, "when I actually had the wall in place. I _knew_ that there were memories that I didn't have, but I couldn't get at them. It was this constant itching in the back of my mind, all the time. Worse when I saw something that had something to do with one of those memories. Dean, this is the same. It's this constant..." Sam screws up his face and shakes his head. His hair flies around his face. "It's always there, this feeling that I'm missing something. It's around the wall, it's around Jack, it's around Heaven and Hell and the Apocalypse and Lucifer and Michael...Dean, this is _everywhere_. Whatever we're missing, it's _huge_."

"Right," Dean mutters. "Right."

\---

They finish the job. They save a few people, see a few more put into the ground, and all the while, the feeling of unease grows in Dean's mind. The more the days stretch, the greater the empty feeling in his chest becomes. He finds himself rubbing at his chest, trying to ease the ache. Occasionally, his fingers will drift to his left shoulder. He'll find the muscle and squeeze, not knowing why he finds comfort in the gesture. 

"We should find a psychic," Sam suggests on the way home. "See if they can break through whatever fog this is." 

"Right." Dean swallows. "Sam, what if...Hear me out, but what if this is a good thing? What if this is helping us?"

He doesn't need to look at Sam to feel the full force of his glare. "When has forgetting something _ever_ been a good thing for us? Come to think of it, this is us. When is _anything_ ever a good thing for us?" 

"Right. Just saying." He lets it lie. The last thing he wants to do is push Sam further than he wants to be pushed, but he can't shake the feeling, looming over him as dark and ominous as a stormcloud, that nothing good lies in their future. 

\---

That night, Dean dreams.

It's the good kind of dream, the sweat-slick, panting, humid kind of dream. The kind of dream that Dean hardly has anymore, because, hello forty. 

In the dream, Dean reaches out blindly. He's greedy, desperate, fueled by an urgency that he doesn't understand. "Please," he pants, lips dragging over salt tacky skin. "Please, please." 

Hands drag over the wings of his shoulders as fingers trace down his spine. He's...it's heat and warmth and a soft glow in his chest that Dean's never felt before. He drags his lips over the hard planes of a chest as he runs his hands over the body underneath him. The hard, male body underneath him. 

Dean pulls his head away to look down into sparkling blue eyes. It's...With a gut-punch of recognition, he knows where he's seen this face before. It's the same face from his previous dream. Now it smiles up at him, full lips splitting in a soft smile. "Where are you at?" the man asks, carding his fingers through Dean's hair. 

"I'm...I'm..." Dean's wordless, but that doesn't matter as the man uses the hand at the back of his head to pull his head down. Hot, insistent lips push against Dean's and he opens readily for the tongue swiping at his lips. Pleasure bubbles hot in his gut and he gasps as he rolls his hips forward. 

A name pushes at the tip of his tongue, but no matter how much Dean struggles, he can't seem to find it. All he can do is gasp into the man's mouth, bite kisses into his chin and throat, pull him closer. He wants..._God_, he wants to pant this man's name, cry it out to the ceiling, whisper it in the secret places of his chest, but he can't, he can't--

He pulls away again, for the express purpose of feasting his eyes. His partner smiles up at him, eyes soft, as he reaches up to cup Dean's cheek. "I'm so glad that you're here with me," he says. Dean could listen to that voice for years. He would listen to that voice read the phonebook. 

"I wish--" Dean turns into the palm against his cheek. His lips skirt against the man's wrist and he licks at the salt tang of his skin. "I want to know. I can't...Who are you?"

The soft, hazy glow in the man's eyes disappears. It's replaced by an awareness so sharp it cuts Dean to ribbons. The hand against his cheek turns urgent, forcing Dean's attention solely on him. "You need to try," the man says, his voice a low rumble, like a storm sweeping over the plains. "You have to try." 

"Try what?" His heartbeat quickens--was the room always this small? Was oxygen always this hard to come by? "Try _what_?"

The man's eyes stare through him. They're the cool blue center of the flame, the crack in the ice. His face is a tempest, his expression--His hand lands on Dean's shoulder, fingers pressing into the skin--

_I'm the one who gripped you tight and raised you from Perdition._

_Good things do happen._

_We're making it up as we go._

_I think it's time for me to move on._

Decades worth of words and images crash into Dean's skull and he howls with the agony of it. He thinks that he might beg to be released, but the hand never lets go. It stays on his shoulder, burns his skin, leaves an imprint of itself behind, and the name rockets through Dean's soul--_Castiel Castiel Castiel_. 

_Cas._

Far away, he can hear a voice screaming his name. 

He recognizes the voice this time. 

"Dean! Dean!" 

_Cas_, he tries to say. _Cas, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean it, please come home. I don't know what's wrong, I don't know where you went, but please come home._

Instead, his world fades to blackness.

\---

Dean wakes with the taste of ash on his tongue. He rolls over and hisses when his shoulder makes contact with the mattress. He rolls up the sleeve to look at the skin--perhaps a missing wound? A freshly risen bruise? 

Nothing. The skin of his left shoulder is a little pinker than normal, but that can be accounted for. It doesn't explain why the skin is tender, like something latched onto him in his sleep. Weird.

He rolls out of his bed and makes his way to the kitchen. He's greeted by the scent of freshly percolating coffee, meaning Sam is already awake and functioning. Good. Returning to normal will only help. 

He grunts when he enters the kitchen and fishes through the cabinets until he finds his favorite mug. Nothing much sets it apart from the rest, other than it's just a nice, soothing shade of blue. 

Sam waits until Dean has almost a full mug in him before he speaks. "So I found a psychic." 

Dean quirks an eyebrow. "For what?"

"What do you mean...Dean?" 

Dean doubles over, barely managing to put his mug on the table. A sudden, vicious stabbing rockets through his brain and he pushes the heels of his hands into his temples. "What the..." He hisses, trying to work through the pain. "Why were you looking for a psychic?"

_You have to try._

Dean gasps, his eyes landing on the mug. Blue. Blue. That means something. His shoulder, Perdition... "Sam," he grits through his teeth. "Sam, something's wrong." 

Sam's hands push him upright, crane his head backwards so that all he can see is his brother's stupid, worried face. "Yeah, no shit. What the hell Dean?"

Perdition. That had meant something. 

"Sam," Dean says. He grounds himself with the familiarity of the bunker, the solidness of his brother, even as the world threatens to spin out from underneath him. "Hell. When I was in Hell. Who got me out?" 

Confusion creases Sam's forehead. "I don't know that any _one_ pulled you out. We always assumed it was more of a team effort, you know? Uriel probably had something to do with it; probably why he was always hanging around all the time." 

"Who killed Uriel?" Dean's head swims with the connections unmade, the questions unasked. "Sam, Uriel died, but how? He said that only an angel can kill another angel, so who killed him?"

Sam's face begins to reflect some of the disquiet that Dean feels. "Anna maybe? I don't know?" 

"But I did know." Dean can't explain the certainty of the statement, but he feels the truth of it deep inside himself, in the same raw, empty place that he's been trying to appease. "I knew." 

"Wait." Sam sprints over to the laptop. Dean could kick him. Research, at a time like this? But then Sam is back, tilting the screen so that Dean can see what he's doing. 

"_teamfreewill_? The hell?" Is he imagining a blush on Sam's face? 

"Yeah well, I guess that Becky packed away all of her baggage. She changed her screen name to this." 

Dean shrugs. "Better than samsnipplefan, or whatever the hell it was." He glances at Sam, waiting for him to take the bait, but alas. His brother's been around him for too long. All Dean gets for his effort is a feeble attempt at an eye roll. 

"Anyway, you remember when Charlie said that Becky had put the unpublished accounts online? Everything through well..." Sam's voice trails off, but he recovers admirably. "What if we could flip through them? See if something rings a bell?"

"You want to read Chuck's writing?" If he could, Dean would take every one of those books and torch them in a bonfire. That was his life. That was Sam's life, and Chuck dicked around and wrote them into tragedy after tragedy...and for what? So he could better ratings? To increase the drama? "Fuck that. I don't want to read a single goddamn thing that asshole wrote." 

"Dean, this might help. Look, you and I both know--something is _wrong_. You've never had this happen before, but I have. Having memories that you don't have access to, having your own brain work against you--it can kill you. It almost killed me, until--" Sam's eyes take on a faraway expression, until Dean nudges him. "Sorry. There's just...there it is again. I know that I was about to die because of the wall tumbling down, but I don't...someone helped us. Someone fixed me and for the life of me, I can't remember _who_." 

Just how much are they missing? From Dean's stint in Hell, to Sam's wall, to Jack? Years upon years, and for what? 

"Fine. Start scanning." 

\---

They're three-quarters of the way through the pretentiously titled _Lazarus Rising_, when the name pops out. 

_Castiel._

Dean grabs for Sam. His fingers grip his brother's arm tight enough to leave bruises, but he can't care about that at the moment, because there...There...

The words swim in front of his eyes, turning hazy. Dean blinks and tries to clear his vision, all to no avail. He can hear Sam's voice, asking what's wrong, asking what he found, but he can't...He can't find the name on the page, no matter how hard he looks. 

"Castiel," he says instead. At first, when it comes out, his voice is small and questioning. The longer that the name sits on his tongue, the more strength he gains from it. He repeats it again, just to feel the jolt of warmth flowing through his body. "Castiel." 

Sam's eyes are wide when they meet his. "Sam, this is it--This Castiel, I think he...them, whatever, that's what we're missing. That's..." Dean glances back towards the page. The words are illegible smears, black marks on a sea of white. "Write it down, burn it into your skin, I don't care. But something...Castiel." 

The name feels right in his mouth, feels better in his chest. It sits comfortably around him, a warm blanket on a cold night. But somewhere, deeper now, there's pain in that name, hurt, loss. Betrayal. 

Dean's fingers press against the tender flesh of his shoulder as he whispers again, "Castiel." 

_I think it's time that I moved on--You can't even look at me--You gave me the benefit of the doubt--You blame me--Something always goes wrong--_

"Cas," Dean whispers, and the word wrenches a bloody torrent from him. "Oh fuck. Oh...oh fuck, oh fuck. Cas." 

He presses harder into his shoulder, imagining a handprint that faded long ago. _I'm the one who gripped you tight and raised you from Perdition._ "It was Cas. He's the one...He's the one who pulled me out of Hell, he's the one that killed Uriel, he's the one..." And Dean stops there, because that's always been the point, hasn't it? Castiel's been the one. 

And Dean forgot about him. 

No, not forgot. 

Castiel was erased, deleted. Neat and tidy like he'd never been there at all. 

"Write it down Sam. Write that down on every single piece of paper you can find, paint it on the goddamn walls." An idea is beginning to form in Dean's head, insidious and heart-wrenching. Someone pushed the backspace button on his and Sam's brains and took an eraser to their memories. The precision that it must have taken to do that and do it so well that he and Sam never realized anything was wrong--There's only one being in the universe capable of that kind of work. 

"Sam," Dean says, as he glances back at the computer. Only a blank page of white greets him now. "Sam, I think we're in trouble." 

-_-_-_-_-

He could grow to like it here, in this suburbia infested hell. The furniture's nice and you can even get groceries delivered. Not that he really needs to eat, but several years of slumming it creates habits that are hard even for him to break. Plus, he's a sucker for Pizza Rolls. 

Becky's computer is a hell of a lot nicer than the busted piece of crap that he wrote all the original novels on. Ah, to be a slave to authenticity. That's what he gets for wanting to write self-insert fiction--crappy house, crappier neighborhood, crappiest stuff. No one ever said that method acting was easy. 

He's redecorated Becky's monument to middle class--gone are the schmoopy pictures of Becky and her family. He's replaced them with every piece of merchandise that he can find (amazing how creative people are when they're really _inspired_). It's always nice to find out that he has fans. The Sam and Dean bobbleheads are exactly where he left them, sitting next to his computer. He likes to use them for inspiration, tap his pencil on their little empty heads. It's almost as fun as playing with the real thing. 

Once upon a time, he would have had the power to check in on the boys and make sure that they were acting according to script. That's been taken away from him at the moment--he dares to ghost a thumb over the _still_ aching hole in his shoulder--but he can still keep up with his hobbies. For now, he'll just have to trust that everything's going according to plan. 

Maybe he'll leak some spoilers about the ultimate ending of _Supernatural_ on the web. He bets that someone would draw some killer fanart of it. 

Ok, so he puns on occasion. Sue him. 

He turns to the opposite side of his laptop. A single, lonely figurine sits there, like a recalcitrant child. He taps on the dark head with the tip of his finger and watches the figurine shiver. 

Pitting Sam and Dean against each other? Tired. Old. He was through with that about five arcs ago. There wasn't any drama in it, not anymore--Sam and Dean would always find a way to make up without ever resolving the issue and even he can admit when his work is getting stale. No, the Sam versus Dean storyline has pretty much played itself out. 

But Dean versus Castiel? Now that's got merit. That's got juice. 

He'd planted the seeds with Jack and the Equalizer, but even he'd been surprised to see how well they'd taken root. And all without his help. It confirms his theory--his children don't need to be governed. Most of the time, with just a little nudge in the right direction, they'll do his bidding. Dean against Cas--now that story's got bite. That story had potential. Too bad that Cas decided to dip out before it could really play itself out. 

"Oh Cas," Chuck says, tapping his finger on the angel's head. "You really shouldn't have written yourself out of the story." 

He takes a last sip of his coffee before he cracks his knuckles and starts to type. 

\---


	2. stronger than memory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean carries Castiel's name like a promise, next to his heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back by (un)popular demand! 
> 
> Just kidding!

\---

_Knowledge is stronger than memory, and we should not trust the weaker.--Bram Stoker_

\---

Sometimes, he'll sit out on the porch and watch the goings-on of the neighborhood. 

It's amazing what humans don't see, or what humans are willing to ignore. For example, the woman two doors down, Cynthia Crawford, is having an affair with her female yoga instructor. She's planning on leaving her husband of fourteen years just as soon as she drains enough money from their bank account. The family living next door to Becky, the Hartfordshire's, make a habit of shoplifting from any store that they enter. The mailman peers into the windows and dreams of having an existence as seemingly carefree as these people's. 

He sits back and watches it all. If anyone notices that Becky's family is gone, seemingly without warning, they don't bring it up. 

Ah, the suburbs. 

He never really explored the horror of them in his writing; that wasn't where Sam and Dean's story led. Dean had his little picket-fence arc with Lisa that ended the second Sam came back and Sam had his little affair with Amelia that ended the moment Dean returned. Codependence, mingled with resentment, is his favorite flavor. 

Really, both of the apple-pie arcs had been little more than a bit of cheap drama--split the Winchesters up and see how long it takes them to get back together. It was a cliffhanger, a way to keep the fans interested until the next installment. It was lazy writing, he'll admit it, especially considering that the Winchesters are ultimately, predictable characters. Rip them apart, put them on opposite sides of a maze, and see how long it takes them to reach the center. Repeat ad nauseum. 

Predictable is usually good--it's nice to know exactly how your characters are going to behave in a scene--but it ultimately loses fans. But that's the problem with the Winchesters and the story in general--he's set up these characters in such narrow perimeters that they only have a certain amount of reactions allowed to them. He hasn't seen Dean react to a setback with anything less than blistering anger in years. 

Now, Castiel. There was a character that had potential. 

Castiel was one of those wildcard types. The fan favorite. He'd thought that the Leviathans would be the end of it--_Goodbye Castiel, better luck next time_\--but even he could admit that the story was just...off somehow. Didn't have quite the same emotional drama. Damn it. The number of times that Castiel had landed himself in get-dead type of trouble, and the number of times he'd had to pull out the little angel that could with some kind of _deux ex machina_ type of maneuver...Too many to count. Still, you have to give the fans _something_ every once in a while. 

So Castiel came back, yippee. The fans win again. But there had been a caveat in his return--never again could he be as close with the Winchesters. No more of that family nonsense--Family was blood, was Sam and Dean against the world. Castiel could orbit tangentially, always looking in but never really included. And the best part--Castiel would let himself become a satellite that was called upon when needed and relegated to the background when not. 

Or at least, that's how it should have been. 

Truth be told (and who is there to lie to?), Castiel's always been that one character who never performed _exactly_ as written. Sure, he'd follow the basic storyline, but there was always some little deviation with his scenes. Like that whole nonsense with the Apocalypse? _We're making it up as we go?_ Where the hell did that come from? He certainly didn't write it, but there he was--the little brave little angel, ready to face an entire garrison and archangel, if only to give Sam and Dean a fighting chance. 

That kind of writing deserved to be celebrated. Too bad that it hadn't continued. 

He taps on Castiel's bobblehead and sighs. At first, Castiel had been an interesting character to have waiting in the wings, but now that they've reached the final arc, Castiel's just superfluous. Secondary characters are dropping right and left, because in the end, the only characters the fans care about are the Winchesters. Castiel just takes up valuable screen time. No one really cares about his arc--angel, should be immensely powerful but gets thrown around by demons on a weekly basis, the original poster boy for Friendzoned Doormats, quintessential screwup--Yawn. _No one even mentions Cas?_ Why would they? What on earth does he bring to the table? 

Not to mention that Castiel had already done him the favor of writing himself out of the story. His power move had been to flounce off like a spurned girlfriend, which really made things a lot easier. Without Castiel, he can get back to basics. Monster of the Week, hotels, and bars. Saving people, hunting things. Really build the dynamic before he starts into the final arc. 

Yeah, all that neighborhood watching has done him good. The next case is definitely going to be in suburbia. 

Chuck starts on the next chapter.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Dean carries Castiel's name next to his heart, like a promise. 

He and Sam learn, through trial and error, that they have to keep the writing on their person, preferably next to their skin, all the time. The moment that they allow themselves to slip, the fog creeps back in. The first day, Sam had left to take a shower. By the time he got back, he was asking Dean what their next case was, without a care in the world. He'd blinked stupidly when Dean explained what was happening and argued when Dean pointed out that all of his memories were based on faulty information. It had taken a permanent marker to the back of his hand before Sam would even entertain the thought that there was something seriously wrong with their brains. 

So when Dean says that he carries Castiel's name, he isn't lying. The actual name, he carries on his arm, a small scrap of paper taped around his left bicep with a heavy amount of gauze. He can feel the scrape of the fabric whenever he shifts, a silent reassurance that this is right. But the idea of Castiel, the hope of him? Dean nestles that close to his heart. 

He still doesn't remember everything. It comes to him in snatches and moments of deja vu--_Castiel was on that case with us, Cas liked that song_. The memories are his, he knows that rationally, but they don't feel like his. They feel like snippets of a show that he saw once, like photos in someone else's wallet. Sometimes, he'll slip and he'll wonder, which is the truth--what he can see with his own eyes, the memories as tangible as his gun, or the misty feeling in his chest, the vague thought of _This isn't right_. Sometimes he wonders whether he's gone insane. If this is finally it. 

Sam finds a psychic less than three hours away. They make the drive and give some bullshit thing about wanting to reclaim repressed memories. Dean puts himself in the chair, suffers the acrylic nails to scrape over his scalp while the woman with the fake eyelashes sits in front of him. Her face twists and contorts as she makes small humming noises. "Hrm. Umm-hmm. Huuuuh." Under her arm, Dean meets Sam's eyes. _Seriously?_ he mouths. Sam gives him a helpless shrug. 

"Well sweetheart, if you have any memories in there, you've buried them so deep that even I can't get at them," she says, after about fifteen minutes of her making every filler noise known to man. "My suggestion would be a routine of meditation and relaxation. See if you coax those memories out." 

"Yeah. That's going to happen." Dean shrugs into his jacket and rakes his fingers through his hair. He's going to have to take a shower when he goes home. 

"If you're convinced that there's something that you're missing, you have to ask why your brain wants it gone that badly. Perhaps it's trying to protect you? We might not always understand the workings of the subconscious, but it's up to us to determine the messages it's trying to send us." The woman smiles, red-limned lips spreading in a sickly smile. "And that'll be $45." 

\---

On the silent drive back to the bunker, Dean can't get the psychic's words out of his mind. 

_Perhaps it's trying to protect you?_

Sam is right--forgetfulness or mind fuckery has _never_ turned out well for them, but Dean can't help but wonder: Is he better off not remembering Castiel?

\---

The calm water of the lake is like silver glass in its smoothness. Hardly a ripple disturbs the surface. Even his lure bobs unoffensively atop the water. The air is still and silent--nary a breeze or a bird to disturb the scenery. It feels like the world is holding its breath, fearful of disturbing the peace. Dean smiles. 

"You favor this spot." 

Somehow, he's not surprised. He looks up at the intruder. 

A holy tax accountant. He'd said that once. The man...not a man, the _angel_ looks down at him. 

"Are you real?" Dean asks. 

The angel's face never changes. "What do you think?"

"I don't know. I don't know anything."

The angel blinks. "What do you want?"

Dean considers his answer. "I don't know." 

The angel tilts his head. "Then you'll never know whether or not I'm real." 

Before Dean's eyes, he starts to fade, becoming fuzzy around the edges. Dean's not convinced that if he went to touch him, that his hand wouldn't go through his form. 

He sits up straighter in his chair. His fishing rod disappears from his hands. "Wait." Obligingly, the angel stops, though he maintains his translucent appearance. Dean narrows his eyes. He tries to place this angel's vessel, but he can't. "Are you...are you Castiel?"

A thunderclap crashes across the lake. The trees all bend at the force of the gale whipping across the water. Tears sting Dean's eyes, both from the water misting in his face as well as the air scraping past him. Lightning flashes in the sky and Dean winces at the bright, white light splitting the sky. 

The angel has vanished. "Castiel?" Dean calls, shielding his face from the wind, light, and sudden, stinging rain. He peers out from underneath his forearm, squinting at the chaos of the lake. "Castiel?"

Far away a voice calls. If he strains his ears, he can almost hear the sound of his own name carried through the wind. 

"Castiel!" he calls once more. The wind rips and tears his call into thin tatters and carries it away. 

"Dean! Dean!" 

\---

With a start, Dean awakes. 

"Fucking weird ass dreams," he mumbles. As has become his habit, he checks the gauze around his arm. Still present, still good. 

"Castiel, who the fuck are you?" he asks apparently no one at all. 

-_-_-_-_-_-

Miles away, the last peal of thunder fades. 

He clenches his fists as he stares down at the screen. While he might not be able to tune into Winchester TV like he used to, he's still fairly attuned to their moods. Someone's getting clever. Someone's trying to break through the fourth wall. 

"Castiel, you little shit," he murmurs. 

The laptop screen glows, illuminating the dark room as Chuck continues on his manuscript. 

-_-_-_-_-_-

Fucking kitsune. Fucking kitsune with their fucking nails. 

Dean curses as he wraps a bandage around his upper left arm. "You couldn't have gotten to him any sooner?" he grouses at Sam. "Son of a bitch almost took my damn head off!" 

Sam rolls his eyes as he shakes a bottle of cheap vodka. "Stop complaining. Jesus, a few scratches and you'd think that you were dying." 

Dean cautiously dabs at the mess on his arm. There's three wicked looking wounds down his arm, but nothing that won't heal with a little dental floss and time. 

They're in the car, wounds doctored and sewn to the best of their abilities, when Dean glances over at Sam. "Was there something that we were supposed to do? I just have this feeling..."

Sam's forehead wrinkles in his specific _I'm very worried about you but also being very Sensitive, so I'm not going to talk about it to you_ look. "You feeling ok?" he asks. 

Dean shakes his head, clearing away the cobwebs. "Yeah. Just one of those feelings." 

They drive on into the night. On the floor of the hotel, a bloodstained piece of gauze sits, along with the scrap of notebook paper bearing a single, angelic name.

-_-_-_-_-_-

Chuck smiles.

-_-_-_-_-_-

A good dream, the best dream. 

He's already hard and aching, skin singing for any kind of touch. Anticipation thrills along his skin and Dean turns his head to hide his grin in the pillow. He keeps his eyes closed--it always ruins the effect to open them. Instead, he focuses on the sensations--fingertips dragged down his bare chest, lips tracing the tendons in his throat. A hand drawn down his shuddering side, dipping teasingly into the dip of his waist. 

Dean arches his hips in obvious invitation, but his partner ignores him. Instead, gentle fingers move up to his face to trace along the lines of his forehead, his cheeks, his lips. "Come on," Dean murmurs. He can feel the delicious feeling of the dream slipping away and growing cold around the edges. "Come on, come on." 

"Dean." 

At the sound of his name, his eyes fly open. He knows...he knows...he _knows_ that voice, sure as the sunrise, sure as his own heartbeat, sure as the scars etched into his skin. 

Castiel should know. He put some of them there. 

"Cas," Dean croaks. His hand flies out and closes around Cas' wrist in a punishing grip. "Fuck Cas, what are you...why are you..."

He spares a moment to blush at their situation. Though a thin sheet drapes over him in a facsimile of modesty, Dean is very, very aware that he's naked. Judging from the long, tawny line of _Cas_ that he can see, Cas is in much the same predicament. 

"Focus." Castiel's voice is like a bucket of cold water dumped atop him. Dean's..._interest_ in the situation wilts. 

"Cas. Castiel. Are you real?"

Castiel blinks. Always with the fucking blinking, like it takes him that extra second to translate human speech into whatever the fuck angels speak. "I'm as real as you want me to be," he finally answers. 

Dean scoffs. He would try and roll away but that would call even more attention to the fact that he's naked and Cas is naked, and Jesus Christ, Cas is _on top_ of him while being naked--This might be every wet dream that Dean's had for the past ten years, but he can already see black creeping in on the edges of the dream. 

"Where are you?" he asks. "Why aren't you...Why aren't you here?" There's a reason for that, he knows there is, but he can't quite wrap his fingers around it. Dozens, thousands, of memories crowd against his skull and he doesn't have context for any of them. Cas grinning at him from across a bar table, Cas sitting in the passenger seat of the Impala, Cas' wings stretching across the roof of a barn--"Why aren't you _here_?" Dean asks, the plaintive complaint of a child. 

Cas' face shutters. Even though he doesn't move, Dean feels him draw away, until there's a neat, cold wall built between them. "You called to me," Cas says, which isn't a fucking answer at all. "I heard you. Dean--what's wrong? Why can't I--It's taking almost everything that I've got to break into your dreams. What did you do?" 

"I didn't..." Dean wracks his brain as he tries to answer Cas' question, only to realize that he can't answer the question. "Cas, I can't remember. I don't...it's just me and Sam, and I don't know where you are, I don't know why you're not here, I can't...I can't _remember_..." 

The black slithers closer, creeping up over the edge of the bed. It licks playfully at his toes. When Dean looks up, Cas is fading into the darkness. 

"Something happened and I can't remember, but Cas, you have to come back, you have to--" 

Cas' face is terrible. Made out of stone, it looks at Dean, pitiless and forbidding. "Please," Dean says. "Whatever happened, we can...we can work past whatever happened. I don't...I can't remember but I know that you always..." He sifts through his brain, filtering through dozens of moments until he finds one that feels right. "You always come when I call, right? Well, I'm calling now. Please." 

Cas doesn't answer as he fades away into nothingness, leaving Dean so very alone.

\---

"You ever imagine what it would be like if we had some kind of help?" Dean asks as he cracks his neck. Staring at the lore books for hours on end is never fun but now that his spine wants to lock up after more than thirty minutes of being stationary, it's lost even more appeal. 

Sam looks up at him sharply. Dean takes a moment to go over his words and then he could kick himself. Of course, they used to have help. Jack, Rowena, Kevin, Charlie...Hell, even Crowley would lend a hand if the outcome suited him. 

"I mean..." Dean trails off, because what he's going to say sounds pathetic even to him. _Don't you wish that we had some kind of friend? Someone that we could trust? Someone to spend time with when we're not fighting for our lives?_

"Never mind," he finishes, ignoring the twinge in his back and burying his nose in the musty book.

\---

"This is getting old," Dean groans as he rolls over. He bumps into Castiel's body, causing him to grunt unhappily. 

"This is your subconscious," Castiel points out. His voice is too blank to _not_ mean something. "You're the one creating these scenarios." 

"Yeah, well, my subconscious is a dick." Dean shoves his face into the pillow so that he can hide the fiery pink tinge of his cheeks. Fuck, there's no way around this one--you don't invite an angel into your fun-time dreams multiple times without giving him some kind of message. 

"Be that as it may." Castiel sits up and it's Dean's worst nightmare confirmed. Miles and miles of Cas-chest, bared for his perusal. There's a tiny mole just to the side of Cas' right nipple. Dean could have lived the rest of his life without having that detail to file away in the spank bank. "Dean. Something's wrong." 

"You're fucking telling me." 

"Dean, focus." Dean glances up at Castiel. Castiel's face is a map of worry, his mouth a study in concern. "Do you remember the last time we spoke?"

Dean shrugs. When he does, the sheet falls away from his shoulder. In revenge, his nipple stiffens in the chill air. "Not really." 

"Do you remember your dreams?" Another shrug is Dean's only answer. "Dean, what do you remember?"

Dean casts his mind back. "Sam and I went on a hunt a week ago. Kitsune. Before that, there was a weird-ass case with a teenage vampire. Before that..." Dean's throat closes. There had been Rowena, and Jack, and Mom... "There was the ghost thing." He looks up at Castiel, a thought only just occurring to him. "And where the fuck were you during that?" 

He glares at Castiel for a good thirty seconds before he takes in the look on his face. Far from appearing defensive or impassive like normal, Castiel looks...undone. Stricken. He looks like Dean's managed to cut to the heart of him in just a few strokes. 

"You don't..." Castiel locks eyes with him. Dean wouldn't dare to look away, even if he thought himself capable of doing so. "Dean, think. Who was the cause of the angels falling?" 

"Metatron. He managed to do the spell and cause the angels to fall." 

Castiel's forehead creases. He doesn't look happy. "Who did you give the First Blade to?" 

Dean shrugs. "Crowley. Really didn't want to, but there was no other choice." 

Castiel's voice comes shorter, quicker. "Who released the Leviathans?" 

Dean's getting a little irritated with this little trip down memory lane. "Crowley. He was trying to open Purgatory for the souls. He didn't manage but a crack, but it was big enough for the Leviathans to slither through." 

Castiel swallows. His eyes are huge and lost. "Dean. Who pulled you out of hell?"

At this, Dean's temper snaps. "How the fuck am I supposed to know? It's not like the bastard ever came and asked for a thank you! And what's with this Q&A session? There's something that...We need to be working on..." Dean winces. There's something that he needs to tell Castiel, he's almost certain of it. 

"Dean." Castiel's voice is low and urgent, the voice that counts down to zero. "What do you remember about me?"

"You're...you're..." Words form and disappear and Dean doesn't have an answer. 

"Cas?" he finally asks, but when he looks around, he's the sole occupant of his bed.

\---

In his dreams, he sits outside, perched on the Impala's bumper. He watches the storms roll in. 

The wind howls in the distance. It calls his name. 

Dean closes his eyes and waits for the rain.

\---

"It's weird," Sam says as he shoves the blade of the shovel into the dirt. "These past weeks, I feel like maybe we're forgetting to do something." 

"What," Dean grunts, tossing dirt over his shoulder, "you forget to call your Prom date back?"

"Shut up, this is serious," Sam says. His face is set the particular brand of prissy that means that arguing with him is just a waste of time. Doesn't mean that Dean can't mouth _shut up this is serious_ where Sam can't see him. "Stop being an asshole and listen." He sounds upset enough that Dean actually does what he wants. "I just get the feeling that there's something that we should be doing. Someone that we should be looking for." 

"Trust me, I'm desperate to get laid too, but there's no one Sam." It's been months since Rowena, Jack, and Mom, but Dean still feels the sting of their loss. It's an ever present ache in his side, a phantom pain that he can't quite shake. "All our friends are dead." 

Sam doesn't speak for the rest of the job--uncovering the rotting casket, wrenching it open to find the desiccated corpse of the Widow Marlowe within, salting and burning the body, and the recovering of the grave. He doesn't speak when they pile themselves back into the car and head towards home. 

He only speaks when they're within twenty miles of the bunker, and then it's to say, "Don't you feel like there should be more to our lives than this? Leaving every week on some dead-end job, ruining what's left of your liver in the dive bar of the week, rinse and repeat? Don't you...Didn't we do _more_ than this?"

Dean's laugh is a small, bitter thing. "Yeah, we did. It was called stopping the end of the world when some douchebag tried to kill it. If that's what you want to do, go for it. Me? I'm happy with a easy-peasy salt and burn. Call me old-fashioned." 

He can't shake the nagging feeling at the back of his mind, however, that he doesn't really feel that way at all. Somewhere, deep inside his chest, he knows that Sam is right. 

-_-_-_-_-_-

The storm rolls closer. Lightning flashes in the dark clouds, brief periods of illumination. 

Dean takes a sip out of his beer bottle before he sets it carefully on the trunk of the Impala. He closes his eyes against the wind that whistles past him. Rain mists against his face, a warning of things to come. When he opens his eyes, he can see the rolling clouds, building higher and higher towards the heavens. 

Far away, the storm builds and rages. 

Dean closes his eyes and waits. 

\---

He's cleaning his room when he finds it. 

He first notices it when it falls from the back pocket of a pair of jeans. It catches his attention, enough that he stops and picks up the offending trash. It's a tiny scrap of paper that's crinkled and yellow enough to come from one of the library books. Dean snatches it off the floor, suddenly worried that Sam will stick his giant moose head in his room have an actual coronary over Dean choosing to rip his scrap paper from his precious books. 

Luckily for him, no wild moose appear. Now that his ears are safe from a thirty minute lecture, Dean unfolds the paper. Hopefully this wasn't a note about anything important. Considering the pair of jeans that it came from, whatever reminder he felt it necessary to scribble down never got done. Oh well. Sam hasn't bitched at him, and to the best of his knowledge, no excessive amounts of people have died as a result of his actions, so it can't possibly have been that important. 

It takes him a moment to decipher his own handwriting. While he's never winning any awards for penmanship, this is messier than usual, like he wrote it under duress or too quickly to stop and correct himself. Dean squints at the words until they shift into words, though none that he recognizes. 

_Chuck is fucking with your head. Castiel. Remember him._

He underlined the last sentence with such vehemence that his pen cut through the fragile paper. 

_Remember him._

"Castiel," Dean murmurs. He turns the paper over in his fingers. Something lurks at the back of his mind, like noise trying to escape a sound-proofed room. The world lurches and twists as Dean reaches through the fog to grasp what he's forgotten--

_I'm the one who gripped you tight and raised you from Perdition._

Wings, giant wings, stretching across the rafters of a sigiled barn. Blood smeared on a wall while a hand pushes at him, _Go, I'll hold them off, I'll hold them all off!_ A firm hand on his shoulder, _Well, we had an appointment_ said with a smile that had no right being that gentle during the midst of the Apocalypse. Fists striking his body while that same voice screamed at him, _I rebelled for this?_

Dean drops to his knees, gasping helplessly. Memories, which had been a trickle, burst through the fog in his brain and become a flood, a torrent. A ring of holy oil and fire in the middle of an abandoned house and he was standing so close to it that his skin burned. Water lapping at the toes of his boots as he fetched a trenchcoat out of a lake and held the sodden garment close to him. Handing that same coat back a few months later and not being able to resist brushing his fingers against those same hands that had rescued him, that had hurt him. Those hands, which he'd come to rely on. Those hands that he'd let fall from his grasp during Purgatory. Those hands that beat him to within an inch of his life and then healed him. 

"Cas," Dean chokes out--Purgatory, Naomi, the Mark, the Blade, The Darkness, Lucifer, Jack, Michael--it all rushes at him and he's caught twisting in the wind. Worse than all that is the final memory that hits him. He and Cas on opposite ends of a table. Cas looking at him with his sad, sad eyes as he says _I think it's time for me to move on_, and Dean just standing there like a moron, like a fool, watching Cas walk away. 

How could he...How did he...How the _fuck_ did he ever manage to forget Cas?

Then he remembers the other bit of information on his note--_Chuck is fucking with your head._

The fog at the back of his mind. The persistent feeling of missing something. Sam's insistence that there should be more to their lives. His dreams, full of storms and lightning. 

Chuck is fucking with their heads. Has been now for months. 

And he...

Dean needs to talk to Cas. 

\---

It turns out that Cas' number has vanished from his phone, neatly as if it had never been there. Sam runs into the same problem. When Dean tries to dial from memory, the numbers vanish from his mind, the second that he thinks them. When his thumb moves at breakneck pace over the numbers, punching in what he thinks is the correct combination, all he gets is a generated message: _We're sorry, the number you dialed cannot be reached._

"What next?" Sam had taken a little longer to come up to speed. He's still not quite there--his focus slips in and out. Dean can tell by the sharpness in the eyes just how lucid Sam is. Right now, he's operating at about seventy-five percent. He's mostly with Dean, at least insofar as Dean doesn't have to keep on explaining himself every thirty seconds, but he's slower than normal. The synapses aren't quite firing on all cylinders. "Do we call Claire? Jody? See if they can get in touch with Cas?"

Dean shakes his head. "For all we know, we'd forget why we called them the second we dialed. Plus, if they've managed to keep off of Chuck's radar, I don't want to bring his attention to him. Better that they're considered non-players than dangers." 

He's seen what happens to those that Chuck considers danger. His stomach twists as he thinks of Jack, of how badly he managed to fuck that one up. 

"Then what? We need to get in touch with Cas to figure out what to do next, but we have no idea how to reach him. And by the way, don't think I haven't noticed that you still haven't told me why he's not here with us." 

Apparently Sam's operating at more like ninety percent if he can make that connection. Damn him and his freakish brain. "Told you, I don't remember." Dean tells the lie with just enough bluster and confusion to hopefully convince Sam. "Maybe Chuck ripped him out of here, maybe he left. I don't know." 

"Well then, if that's your theory, how do we even know that he's still alive. If Chuck went to all the trouble to erase him, wouldn't he just...I don't know, kill him? Snap him out of existence?" 

Sam asks this like the thought hasn't already occurred to Dean, like he hasn't been haunted by the idea. Of Cas being there one moment, and then gone the next. Of Cas yanked out by his wings, pain creasing his face. Of Cas, snuffed out as easily as a match. 

"I mean, it sucks, but we have to consider it. We've lost..." Sam's voice withers into nothing, but Dean can guess what he was going to say. _We've lost everyone else._

Not Cas. There's still shit that Dean needs to do. 

"Trust me," Dean says, with more confidence than he feels. He thinks back to his dreams of the past week--the oncoming storm, rolling in over the plains, dark, foreboding, and utterly devastating. He thinks about all the opportunities he had to leave and how he just sat there, waiting. 

"I've got a way to get in touch with him. 

\---

Dean sits on the rear bumper of the Impala. The storm is almost on top of him. The wind whips at his face hard enough to sting and the harsh, cold rain leaves tiny little pinpricks of red on his exposed skin. Lightning flashes and thunder booms, so close together that they're indistinguishable. It's vicious, but Dean doesn't feel afraid. He's calm, heart beating steadily in his chest. 

"Castiel," he says. His voice is drowned out by the howl of the wind, but he doesn't shout. Anyone important can hear him. "Cas." 

Lightning strikes, less than a foot away. It scorches the earth, leaves a smoking, black crater close enough to him that Dean feels the heat through the leather of his boots. The bright white light seers through his retinas, and for a moment, Dean is blinded. His vision returns slowly, in little bursts of black and white. When he can finally see again, Castiel's face is the first thing that his eyes light on. 

Despite everything--Chuck's manipulation, the danger drawing closer around them like a noose, the minefield that lays between them--in spite of all that, Dean smiles. 

"Hey you bastard," he breathes. The Impala's trunk is cold underneath his hands, but he has to hold onto it to keep himself from doing something stupid. "Was wondering when you'd show up." 

"I've been trying." Cas' face is impossible to read, but if Dean had to guess, then he would say that Cas is an odd combination of angry, worried, hurt, and fond. "It's taken all of my power to just be here, in your dreams. Dean...I don't understand fully what's happening, but if I'm correct then a power far greater than me is--"

"It's fine," Dean says. It's really not, but he finds that what he wants from this time isn't hashing out theories with Cas. If all they have is a few minutes, he doesn't want to spend them arguing about what he already knows: Chuck is a dick who's not done screwing with them. He has more important things he needs to say. 

Unfortunately, Cas doesn't feel that way. "Dean, I'm not sure if you understand--If I'm correct, then you've been the unwitting--"

"Cas, shut up." Dean has to let go of the Impala when he stands. Without her support he sways, temporarily untethered from the world. He wavers, before he gains his bearing. "I know what's happening. Kind of. I can figure the rest out. That's not important." He doesn't stop until he's in front of Cas, just out of reach. "You left." 

Cas meets his eyes without flinching, but Dean knows him well enough, he _finally_ knows Cas well enough that he can see the pain etched into his face. "Do you remember why?" 

"Because of me." Maybe a few weeks ago he would have balked from saying it so baldly. But he's also lived the past few weeks having Cas erased from his mind. Feeling that gap, every single day, knowing that _something_ was missing, but not knowing what, having such a huge part of his life scooped out of his mind with such surgical precision...It's switched around a few of Dean's priorities. 

"Yes." 

"Cas. I can't..." Dean aches to reach out to Cas, but he can't force himself to stretch the last few inches. "These past few weeks...I told you once that there was no way of knowing what was real. That I didn't know what was Chuck and what was me." Cas' eyelashes flutter in recognition, but that's the only move he makes. "And then Chuck erased you. You left and he used that to wipe the board clean of you." 

He expects the brief flash of pain that crosses Cas' face. He's just not prepared for how it slices his foundations to the core. Dean's fingertips ache with the need to press into Cas' skin, but he restrains himself. 

"And that's how I know. This," Dean gestures between himself and Cas, "this is real. Because all that time, I was trying to remember you. I didn't even know what was missing, but I kept trying to remember, because I knew that something wasn't right. I kept on finding ways to remind myself to get back to you, kept on inviting you into my dreams, kept trying to find you. Because you were right Cas. _We're_ real. Not any bullshit agenda by Chuck, us. Because he wanted me to forget that you ever existed and I...I couldn't do that." 

The longer he speaks, the more Cas' face breaks open. At the end, Cas stands in front of him, no longer the stoic angel, no longer the vengeful storm...Just Cas. 

"I don't know where you are. I don't know how I'm going to get in touch with you. But I'm going to find you Cas, because if Chuck wants us apart, then that's as a good a reason as any to come back together." 

"And is that the only reason?" Castiel draws back slightly, the wall falling in front of him. "You want a way to defeat him?"

"Of course," Dean answers. "This asshat screwed with our lives for cheap entertainment and broke the world when he got mad that his ending wasn't the one that we wanted. He's the reason that Rowena and Jack and Mom died." 

He waits for those words to sink in. He can see the moment when they do in the startled flick of Cas' eyes, the soft curve of his lower lip. "He's the reason. Not...not you." He dares to take a step closer. "Cas, I tried to blame you for everything because I was pissed and I was hurt and that was easier than blaming myself. But I...I never wanted you to leave." 

"I had to go," Cas says, so quietly that his voice is almost stolen away by the storm still raging around them. "I couldn't..." 

"I know. I know you had to go. But...I _forgot_ you Cas. Ten years and they were just...just gone. And I can't...I don't want to live through that again." 

Cas' eyes dart down to the ground. "Maybe that was for the best. Maybe you should lose whatever remembrances of me you have and just...continue." Cas manages to say that with a straight face and that, more than anything, sparks Dean's anger. 

"Fuck that. And you know what? Fuck you for saying that." Now he finally takes that last step forward so that he can fist his hands in the lapels of Cas' coat. He drags the angel forward until their chests touch, so that there's no hope of escape for Cas. "Did you not hear me? _God_ took you away from me and I fought to get you back. And I know I fucked up, every single time I remember you I have to remember how much of an ass I was, and it's like the first time every time, god, I know what I put you through. But don't you ever, ever say that I would be better off without you. Because I fought my way back to you. And if I forget you again, then that's what I'll do again. For as long as it takes." 

He's dragged Cas closer and closer, until their noses are brushing, until they're sharing the same breath. Until it's nothing at all for Dean to tilt his head so that his lips are brushing against Cas'. 

For a moment, Cas freezes against him. Dean starts to draw back, shame and rejection pulsing in his heart, but he barely moves an inch before Cas' hands are threading through his hair and pulling him closer. This time it's Cas who presses his lips to Dean's, who tentatively swipes at Dean's upper lip with the tip of his tongue. Dean opens to his touch, groaning as Cas hesitantly licks into his mouth. 

"Oh fuck," he pants, once Cas releases him enough to breathe. "Cas. Fuck." He drags his fingers through Cas' damp hair and presses his forehead to Cas'. His heart swells full to bursting, but all he can do is press his forehead into Cas', breathe his air. "Missed you. Missed you so much, even when I didn't know, I _knew_..."

Cas kisses him, hard and furious and claiming, like he can erase those memories too, just by sheer will. Dean succumbs to his touch, opening wherever Cas presses. Cas kisses like a thunderstorm, like the wind howling around them, like the torrential rain sweeping down and soaking through their clothes. Cas kisses like he's taking no prisoners, like he's going to impress the thought of himself so deeply into Dean's skin that there will be no danger of him ever forgetting. 

Dean doesn't know who fumbles first for the handle of the backseat, but somehow, they tumble into the backseat together. Dean's legs spread easily, making a spot for Cas to slot himself into. He wraps his legs around Cas' hips, holding him close, not that Cas seems to want to leave. 

"We don't have much time," Cas pants into the soft skin just behind Dean's ear. "This dream...It's already breaking..."

"Don't worry about that," Dean says, twisting Cas' hair between his fingers. It serves the purpose of dragging Cas' attention back to him. In the flashes of lightning, Dean sees Cas' eyes darken. "Just...stay with me. For however long we have." 

Cas' face softens as he drags his fingertips down Dean's cheek to rest at his lips. A soft groan rumbles through him as Dean flicks his tongue out against the pads. "I can do that," he murmurs, before he dips his head down to capture Dean's lips once more. 

While Dean's had quite a few exploits in the backseat of the Impala, it wasn't exactly designed for two six foot men. They make the best of it, rearranging their bodies until Dean's left leg hangs over the front seat, leaving him spread open for Cas. Cas takes his time, the bastard, slipping his cold hands underneath Dean's shirt and spreading his fingers as wide as they'll stretch over his torso. Dean arches shamelessly into his touch, his head tipping back as Cas lips over the his thrumming pulse. 

He doesn't realize that Cas is speaking at first. The words are lost in the shuffle of clothes and skin. It isn't until Cas returns to his mouth, hot and needy, that Dean realizes what he's saying. "Don't forget this, don't forget this, don't forget this--"

"I won't," Dean promises, threading his fingers through the soft hairs at the back of Cas' neck. "I can't. Never forget you." 

Cas kisses him like the end of the world as his hands work at the fastenings of his jeans. Dean shudders when his fingers dip inside and cries out when Cas' hand wraps around his cock. "I won't forget you, I won't, I won't, Cas, please." His words trail off into unintelligible moans as Cas strokes him, slow at first, then faster when he gathers pre-come from the tip of Dean's dick. 

Soon, embarrassingly soon, Dean comes over Cas' knuckles and the inside of his boxers. He kisses Cas through it, teeth nipping at Cas' lips and chins. When he comes, he crushes his lips into Cas'. Cas swallows his cries and kisses him through the aftershocks, fingers gentling down Dean's cheeks and sides while he shakes. Dean's grateful then, that Cas lets him hide his face in his shoulder. The rough fabric of Cas' coat scrapes against his face. There, with the ozone and forest scent of Cas, Dean whispers _I love you_, and lets the coat absorb his words. 

Dean shifts and the change in position has Cas' still clothed erection rubbing against his lower stomach. He grins, even as Cas hisses a surprised breath. Dean arches up deliberately, just to feel that delicious drag again. Cas looks down at him, his hair rucked up in the back and eyes wild. "Come here," Dean breathes. 

It takes some shuffling for Cas to realize what he wants, but when he does, Cas acts with superhuman speed. Before too many seconds have passed Cas is straddling his waist and rutting against his chest. He has to twist his head at an awkward angle, but he doesn't seem to mind. 

Judging from his harsh breaths and his quickening movements, Cas could come just from this, but Dean wants more. If this is going to tide him over for a while, he wants to make the best of it. "Let me see you," he says, working at Cas' belt and slacks. Again, some shifting is required, but Cas is flexible and determined and those two traits stand him in good stead. Before too many minutes have passed, Dean is able to wrap his fingers around Cas' dick. He watches it sliding through his fingers as Cas rolls his hips. Cas' eyes flutter shut and his mouth falls open in artless pleasure. There's no pretensions here, no need to pretend. The moans that fall from Cas' lips are genuine. The shivers that shake through his body are true, and when he comes, those cries are unfeigned. 

Cas' eyes fly open when he comes, locking on Dean's. Dean watches him through it, drinking in the sight of his furrowed brow, the delighted surprise and bliss crossing through Cas' expressions. He doesn't have to say the words. They're written plain on his face. 

_Remember this_, Dean thinks, fiercely, as he pulls Cas down for another kiss. _Please. Please remember this._

They lay in the afterglow for as many minutes as they dare without speaking. Finally, Cas lifts his head from Dean's chest. Around them, the storm rages. Rain beats down on the Impala's roof and Cas' eyes are illuminated by the flashes of lightning. Thunder cracks through the sky like a clock counting down the seconds. 

"This will be gone soon," Cas murmurs, speaking the obvious. Already, Dean can see the tell-tale black creeping around the edges of his vision. "I don't think that I'll have enough power to find you again. My grace...it's waning, and faster than I expected. Soon, it'll be gone entirely." 

Dean doesn't have any words. All he can offer are tactile forms of comfort--fingertips smoothing over Cas' temples, lips pressed to his forehead. Cas melts into his mouth, an unsteady breath shaking through his body. "I can try to come to you but I don't...If Chuck wants you isolated from me, then he'll make it difficult to get to you. Almost impossible." 

"Where are you?" Cas' hair is soft between his fingers. _Remember this_ repeats in his head like an endless refrain. The shine of blue in Cas' eyes, the curve of his lips. The soft give as he presses their lips together. The shudder of Cas' muscles as he traces the line of his spine. His scent. The rumble of his voice. The steady beat of his heart. _Remember this._

"Driggs, Idaho," Cas answers, but with sadness. "Dean, if I can't come to you, then there's no way that you're--"

Dean hushes him with a kiss. He closes his eyes so he won't have to see the blackness creeping around them. He pulls away and traces Cas' face with shaking fingertips. "Team Free Will, remember? No one tells us what we can and can't do. No one. If you're trying and I'm trying, then we'll meet in the middle somewhere." He drags his brain for a moment. "Fort Collins, Colorado. Be there in a week. I'll find you there." 

"And if you don't?" Cas is shaking too, his fingers grabbing at Dean like they're trying to memorize him. "If you forget?" 

Dean smiles. "Then trust that I'll still find a way to you." He holds Cas' face in his hands. Stubble against his cheeks, warm skin against his wrists. _Remember this._ "Fort Collins. One week. I'll find you." 

"Dean." The black obscures everything now, even the clean lines of the Impala. Cas' voice is urgent. "Dean, I need to tell you--"

"In a week." If Cas says it now, it will sound too much like a goodbye, like a preemptive admission of defeat. "Tell me in a week and I'll tell you...I'll tell you everything." 

He kisses Cas one more time.

_Remember this._

-_-_-_-_-_-

He glares at the computer screen and the offending page of white. No matter what he tries, the words don't seem to stick. He tries different combinations, different orders, but they all sit wrong. No sentence lasts longer than a minute before it's gone. 

Chuck slams his pinky into the backspace button yet again. "What the hell?" he mutters, before he starts to type yet again. 

A few moments later, he hits the Delete button.

-_-_-_-_-_-

Dean wakes with the scent of ozone and the forest in his nose and warmth still spreading across his torso. For a moment he struggles to think of a reason why and then--

It's faint in the back of his head, but still there, glowing like a distant lighthouse, pointing the way home. He takes that glow and puts it in his chest where he can nurture and shelter it. 

He bounds out of bed, a smile on his face. Not even the cold floor against his bare feet can dim his mood. "Sam, get your shit packed!" he shouts. "We need to make a trip to Colorado!" 

It's better to get there early. Just in case.

In his chest, a light pulses constantly, chasing the cobwebs away. 

It's going to be a good day. Dean can tell.

~*~*~*~*~*~*

_Your memory feels like home to me. So whenever my mind wanders, it always finds its way back to you.--Ranata Suzuki_

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr [here](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/dothwrites). Come yell at me about the newest season, Destiel, or you know, whatever. I'm mostly salty, but sometimes fun.


End file.
